Financial topics

[OLD1953]

I will lose my own money all by myself with the cheerfull and useless idiots we are are suffering.

Reminds me of an old Dilbert. https://thedilbertstore.com/products/65 ... anti-idiot

Scott Adams saw it all, and he went to cartooning from engineering because he could not quit describing the stupidity he saw going on around him every day.

[aedens]

I will lose my own money all by myself with the cheerfull and useless idiots we are are suffering.

Reminds me of an old Dilbert. https://thedilbertstore.com/products/65 ... anti-idiot

Scott Adams saw it all, and he went to cartooning from engineering because he could not quit describing the stupidity he saw going on around him every day.

Dil, he was to busy, but he gets it for sure. Sismondi’s, seen it from many points of view also to polity but it just got plain twisted very soon for means.
I will read more of his his polity works when I get time since to many diminish what he actually said and meant for agenda since they could not keep up.

[Higgenbotham]

Expect some action to prop up markets before Monday opening. I have no idea what the FED will pull out, unless they've decided it is time to push people towards the exits, they'll do something.

Also seems likely to me. Money flow is going into bonds and oil prices are down, so there isn't any reason not to prop the market that I can see, unless control has been lost.

The ficklemess of the herd is astounding - even worse than last year in my opinion. Just 2 weeks ago, the Dow Jones was trumpeted as being at a 4 year high, the Facebook IPO was eagerly anticipated to drive the market higher, and Buffet's annual meeting was the usual. There's little doubt in my mind that week saw the "eye of the hurricane" as "OLD foretold". Now we have stocks off 10% and barely up for the year and Facebook was a dud. Yet, during those 2 weeks, very little surfaced that wasn't already known.

We have to remember that this is the third iteration of a bubble and it's been going on for 12 years. Far more resources have been misallocated and lives depleted and wasted than in a typical generational cycle. 46 million on food stamps and growing every day. Scores of millions more totally dependent on government largesse as employees, contractors, or aid recipients (including social security). Reminds me of that day long ago when Gennifer Flowers announced that she had been Bill Clinton's lover for 12 years. One life depleted and wasted, but now scores of millions as the bubbles have spanned 3 Presidencies. Where did the money go? Infrastructure? No, Facebook and Apple and those are the best of the Black Holes, much better than the $5 billion and counting that JP Morgan has made disappear, for example.

[aedens]

http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/ ... ctics.html

Patience of dynamics planning. If you are not four moves ahead you lose.
We know better here and I thank your candid acumen.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2&p=8822&hilit=metal#p8822

[vincecate]

We have to remember that this is the third iteration of a bubble and it's been going on for 12 years. Far more resources have been misallocated and lives depleted and wasted than in a typical generational cycle. 46 million on food stamps and growing every day. Scores of millions more totally dependent on government largesse as employees, contractors, or aid recipients (including social security).

In the 1920s there was a bond bubble, a real estate bubble, then a stock bubble.

Now I think we have seen a stock bubble, a real estate bubble, and next is bond bubble.

Both series of bubbles seem to be due to the Fed trying to hold interest rates artificially low. This time the Fed has distorted the economy much more. I think this bond bubble is huge.

[Trevor]

We've had bubbles long before the federal reserve was created. The panic of 1857, for instance, and the South Sea bubble, Mississippi Bubble, and numerous others.

[Marc]

We've had bubbles long before the federal reserve was created. The panic of 1857, for instance, and the South Sea bubble, Mississippi Bubble, and numerous others.

This is well worth noting. I know that it's become something of a mantra in some quarters today to shout "End the Fed," "[we need] sound money," and such. However, I'm pretty sure that generational forces would have taken over today to produce results that are as bad (or possibly worse) in regards to the abuse of credit and financial-bubble creation if there were no Fed. In fact, if there were no Fed, the results may possibly be worse due to every megabank possibly being allowed to act as its own Fed and really "print away," so to speak. Thanks for the insights. —Best regards, Marc

[aedens]

They add a zero to million and get a billion so debt is a trillion so the hard currency is dead until fiat fails and they know
this. Political economy is inflationary treadmills and exported as we move forward. As MENA sorts out there so called priority's the great game moves forward. The three party butchering remind me again from John's current concise report of factions. When Rome had four party's and the Emporer invited them to meet for discourse. At the end of the day only two colors left that day. Many are missing the rentier assault on savers and those in the private economy.
Food for thought: http://nppfuture.com/2011/02/27/the-unt ... s-severus/

[OLD1953]

I have a strong suspicion the social issues will carry the day, reason being on all other issues this pair are so close they are touching. If you want news, you have to dig it out and sift the wheat from an awful lot of trash. The local TV news does a reasonable job whatever the channel, but as far as the big cable news shows go, it's MSN on the left and Fox on the right with CNN trying to stay in the middle but being whipsawed around by constant accusations of bias from both sides. Of course the problem lies with the whole business of interpreting the news, reporting the story would suffice, but they have to put on their turbans and play mind reader. I wish I had five bucks for each time I've heard a "news" caster say "******* so and so is thinking *******". How did they know? They read the guys mind? They use crystal balls? The very most you could say would be "Senator XXX said that he thinks" and that's not what they mean. (Do Senators think? An intriguing question.)

I'm seeing a lot of fear and doubt in the market news, apparently the idea that the EURO may be no more has finally gotten through. It will be interesting to see if the north remains united in currency while the south does not. It could easily fall out in that way. Shades of the Civil War, on another continent.

The issue with jobs worldwide is simply this, if productivity was raised to it's maximum with maximum use of robotics as it exists today, we'd have a tiny proportion of the population producing for all the others and more, but nobody else would have an actual job. So we make jobs up out of nothing. What we'll do in forty years, when no human will be able to compete with a robot for productivity and cost, I don't know. We need a new economic paradigm, the old ones seem to be about dead.

[vincecate]

We've had bubbles long before the federal reserve was created. The panic of 1857, for instance, and the South Sea bubble, Mississippi Bubble, and numerous others.

This is well worth noting. I know that it's become something of a mantra in some quarters today to shout "End the Fed," "[we need] sound money," and such. However, I'm pretty sure that generational forces would have taken over today to produce results that are as bad (or possibly worse) in regards to the abuse of credit and financial-bubble creation if there were no Fed. In fact, if there were no Fed, the results may possibly be worse due to every megabank possibly being allowed to act as its own Fed and really "print away," so to speak. Thanks for the insights. —Best regards, Marc

Yes, there were single bubbles like the South Sea Bubble and numerous others. However, having 3 bubbles in a row, using all 3 major asset types, is something only the Fed seems to have been able to do. Bonds are a bubble. After the bubble pops, it will be obvious that interest rates 2% lower than inflation was crazy bubble prices. Somehow it is not obvious yet.